The raspy sax, dramatic vocals, and ostentatious instrumentation could just as easily have a place in a gaudy musical as they do on this album.
I wanted to note down the zero build step setup I’ve been using for SPA prototypes and hobby projects over the last year. I’ve found this combination of tools and trade offs keeps me productive and gives me peace of mind that I won’t return to a codebase hobbled by abandoned dependencies and breaking changes …
Weaving larger-than-life arrangements with razor-sharp yet feather-light lyricism, Crookes sits as the centerpiece of a kind of big band pop.
Blake’s vocals are, predictably, beautiful; Blake’s production is, predictably, meticulous; and it’s all, predictably, quite predictable.
Uncompromising, and very brutal indeed. Some listeners will struggle to see it through to the end, whereas others will feel oddly comforted by its harshness.
Each note of every individual performance is captured and presented perfectly, with the ragged spirit of the band left intact. It’s scruffy yet masterful.
The record transcends hip-hop, a buttery fusion of rap, soul, synth-pop, jazz, and a whole lot more. There’s even a reggae section that hits the spot.
The record listens like rock music’s answer to an ice-cold six-pack of decentish lager. It’s unrefined, but a cheap and cheerful good time.
Ellie Rowsell’s drift between spoken-word musings and operatic soarings is alive and well, and the band as a whole is as simpatico as ever - if not moreso.
The early 1970s was a golden era for singer-songwriters, but this stands alongside the best. The beauty of Mitchell’s songwriting lies in its simplicity.
Annie Clark wrangles a myriad of vintage sounds and gives them a stunning contemporary sheen, but it is in service of a world unquestionably her own. David Bowie and Mia Wallace had a sweet baby girl and abandoned her in South Queens.
Squid take characteristics from krautrock, dub, funk, and jazz to form a sound that is remarkably coherent and wholly distinct. It’s chaotic, but it works.
All the great metal albums contain at least a small portion of cheese. Fortitude is similar to a mild cheddar. Versatile, resilient and, sometimes, unbeatable.
Deep, lush composition meets powerful spoken word delivery in Max Richter’s latest project, producing a potent, uplifting concoction.
Where others might layer up to obscene degrees, Stott has a knack for finding beauty in minuscule details. It’s practically ambient music for club-goers.
The record takes listeners on a spectacular musical safari, zipping between genres without ever feeling the slightest bit disjointed.
A rock record produced like a dance record, with endless amounts of saturation and compression applied to, well, everything. This is a failed experiment.
From brotherly estrangement to Fabergéal financial ruin to dental calamity, Bleeding Gums’ soulful howling and gravelly tone is magnificient.
Vintage Del Rey (in both senses of the word), though the curious thing about the record is that it flies highest when she sounds least like herself.
An epic poem in LP form, throughout Cohen embraces a brutal honesty that, although daunting on the surface, reminds you that bleakness can be beautiful.
An album caught in no-man’s land, its dozy stadium rock tunes neither advancing Kings of Leon’s sound nor recapturing the glory of their past.
The shift away from skeletal guitars is welcome, but Baker’s strength does not lie in expansive arrangements. The songs sound like they’ve been developed for arenas, which is a strange paradox.
Drawing from a melting pot of influences, Parks delivers ice cool nonchalance and honest intimacy in a debut record as exciting as it is impressive.
An expansive, impressive listen with delicious moments of climactic eruption. For Mogwai fans, this should feel like a hit in the band’s discography.
The album dusky psychedelic pop is covered in so much haze that, despite serious musical detours, tracks tend to blend together. It’s a good blend, though.